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A Distant Soil by Colleen Doran
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Wow – Galahad is really good at stopping a fight! Nice to know that not all the humans are hot-heads!
Galahad’s a nice boy. And look at Corrine. She’s being very reasonable.
whoa, Minetti said what? Wow.
Also, Bast. Just… Bast. (ticks another checkmark on the clipboard)
So much going on! So much characterisation in a few words – detachment, homophobia, malice, balance, old world divine right, God I love Minetti! joy riding – whoo – and you still manage to show Bast changing back from Jorvana!
Galahad is my favorite incidental character; he’s honest, just, and humble… traits I admire (I have a soft spot for Corrine as well, she’s got a wonderful attitude). Bast is my favorite secondary character for the opposite reasons I love Galahad; she’s complicated which makes her fun.
And is someone going to let Liana, Jason, and D’mer out soon? Poor Jason (“help! I’m stuck in here with a half-naked gay guy!”); poor D’mer (“help! I’m stuck in here with a badly-dressed homophobic!”); most of all, poor Liana (“help! I’m stuck in here with a pair of idiots!”)
Such a swirl of drama! Nicely handled, too!
But yeah, guys… I realize you have cause to be angry, but you think beating up the guy who’s just be put through the telepathic wringer will actually get you an explanation any faster?
Just BEEN…. been…. (*grumble*) darn typo.
I find it hard to believe anyone wouldn’t want to smack Rieken around a little.
I had to make a double take when I first saw panel one. so much going on, for a second I thought Galahad was pulling Bast’s hair!
by their dialogues, I can imagine D’Mer and Jason in a car, Jason driving, and D’Mer telling him he just took the wrong turn into a lost long road, both arguing about which direction to take.
I miss Bast. I think that’s pretty much the only thing I didn’t take well. She was this cool, powerful woman (or not a woman as the case may be). And I always remember many things, such as her line when the er… other version of Liana was being prissy about D’mer. “With a chip on your shoulder the size of a boulder, no wonder you view the world askew.” I’m certainly paraphrasing. Plus, you know, the woman who scared Brent and cheerfully told Seren that she hadn’t eaten her lover, just “exiled him from my boudoir”.
Now she’s reduced. Was it because you loathed the un-named so much and it was their idea? Or was it because as she was, in fact cool and not whiny or even the least bit fazed by Seren’s relationship with D’mer, she took too much focus away from them? Or something like that. Colleen gets very little focus, Beys is not a truly good person with Jason’s feelings at heart. I know about Niniri (sp?) and, well we know Sere. That leaves only Liana who sounds like my kindergarten students, and the dead mother.
Er, not Colleen. Corrine. My neighbor, whose name is Corinne, used to wonder why I took so long to learn to spell her name correctly.
You have lost me. You didn’t take what well? I’m not sure I understand these comments, so I will do my best.
The short story you mention was printed in the Image comics and GN. The lettering was done on overlay and not on the original art. I have to scan the originals and then Photoshop in the lettering. I don’t have the skill, which is why it is not on the website yet. So, I don’t know if you mean to say that since it isn’t on the website it didn’t happen?
EDIT: Just remembered problem with that story: I drew Seren too tall. He should be much shorter in relation to Bast.
The other scene you mention is from the discarded version 0. It is out of character, so I cut it entirely. I’m glad you liked it and as you can see from the credits, I wrote it, as well as the short story you mention. I wrote all of A Distant Soil, in fact. No one came up with a single character, plotline, or story idea but me, except for a short story in the GN collection by a writer named Mary Jo Duffy.
An editor on version 0 added dialogue and captions (particularly on the first few issues) over my strenuous objections. Major scenes were cut, all of which I restored later. I also removed all captions and thought balloons. But I wrote that scene you mention, and I don’t recall any edits on it.
You’re in the minority over your opinion on that scene, however. I got letters of complaint about how preachy it was. One person who sometimes comments on this board said that it made her gag. I read my work years later and found my writing embarrassing.
Since Liana comes to like D’mer and Seren on her own incentive, she doesn’t need someone to lecture her about them. It’s unrealistic to expect a sheltered little girl to be completely accepting of her father’s male lover and his new boyfriend. Liana came to an acceptance of the situation in her own good time without an intervention.
Bast doesn’t see D’mer as a threat to her, as was demonstrated in an earlier scene, but she is status conscious, as all of her people are. I’ve come to realize the “total acceptance of everything and everyone” trope is contrived and unrealistic.
Bast was ostracized, and has more baggage than United Airlines. She is interesting, complex, not one-dimensional and dream-perfect. Powerful, but flawed.
She has more on panel time than she did in version 0. Everyone does. (Now that I think of it, version 0 wasn’t even as long as my first Image GN). So, I’m not really sure what you are getting at with some of your comments. They really seem to be coming out of left field.
Dead mother? What?
If you did not read the comics, then you missed the “Seasons of Spring” prequel, which remains unfinished. Jessica Scott, Liana’s mother, is a prominent character. The stories have not yet been collected in GN form and are not yet on the website.
Interesting how different people can come away from the same reading experience with completely different interpretations. For example, if you read back over prior comments by others on this board, almost everyone comments that Liana is the mature one in scene after scene. And yet you think she is a kindergartner. It’s fascinating how that happens.
I think Liana “plays” at being younger (though not so young as a kindergarter) simply because she knows the young get … well, coddling. And she’s been so emotionally deprived for so long, there’s a desire for that.
But I think her instincts have also told her that she has to evaluate and understand people swiftly in order to survive. Almost all her life people have wanted things from her, and most of them have not been nice people. It’s safer to recognize how people really are (what their relationships really are, what they are interested in having or getting) than to hold on to illusions of what you want them to be.
I think that’s what Seren values in Liana — he doesn’t come to that wisdom as easily.
I think the other side of the coin to Colleen’s rebuttal to farbeitfromme is that Colleen herself evolved as a writer as well an an artist, and some things just wound up being changed not because of any outside objection but because she felt that, with newer perspective, she had a better way to tell the story.
Nothing gives you perspective like setting your own work aside and seeing it months or years later. And thinking “JEEEZus I wrote that mess?”
As for word balloons and captions, version 0 was heavy with them. I made the conscious decision not to use them at all. I do not want an omniscient narrative presence, nor do I want any “in” to the character’s thoughts except those which they freely share with others.
@ scribbler: ditto.
It’s just that I feel Bast was a different character back then in 0. I can see why people would consider that particular dialogue preachy. Also, those things I picked on are what you removed because they are out of character for her, so the weight of the one I originally read is still with me while reading your wonderful present work. I’m glad that was all your writing, and as I said, am delighted.
I did indeed read “Seasons of Spring” and have wondered ever since if the twins did something which somehow resulted in their parents’ deaths. And possibly theirs, too. Saying more would probably be spoiling. Hmm.
I’ve been suffering through the three categories of women often lately. It’s on tv a lot. Saint, bitch or victim (and saint is often victim).
I deal with about 250 kindergartners a week. There is an enormous range of personality and variations in maturity, so it would be more accurate to say that some of these kids remind me of Liana. All “Candy! Cute fuzzy things!” one moment and every once in a while “Miss Okamoto, you have to set a better example for us.” (No, seriously, I heard a six-year old girl tell that to a teacher who freaked out at the sight of a snake)
Oh, OK, that all makes sense to me now. Thanks for taking the time to come back and explain.
FYI: I worked then the same way I do today: layouts with dialogue. I’d turn in finished pages, and then sometimes not see edits until I had a printed copy of the book in my hand. Same thing happened with the first three covers. The short story you like was was almost killed for being too racy.
I love the professional editors I work with now. I learn a lot from them and treasure them.
I’d say Bast is saint, bitch and victim! LOL!
Love the kindergartner story!
It’s all true, I swear.
And incidentally, I was just re-reading my copy of the Donning/Starblaze “Knights of the Angel”. I never figured out where Eshi fits in all this.
Although I suppose she might be out of the story by now. As another side not, I loved Margie the cabbie.
No spoilers.
I’m surprised you say you’ve read past version 0. When you first started posting here, you gave me the impression you had read nothing since! So, cool, thanks for your support!
For those confused by all these references to out of print editions, be aware that the Starblaze edition farbeitfromme refers to is online in it’s entirety and is collected in A Distant Soil: The Gathering. You haven’t missed anything, so I am sorry if you are confused by these references to past editions. Just ignore.
@Coleen – Don’t worry! For a new reader like me it is interesting to see that there was a lot ore around these books, and how much effort you’ve put into trimming, cleaning and placing it all back together to make the story flow as you always viewed it. <3
oh yeah, I forgot about Eshi. Pretty much the Sleeping Beauty of the set.
BTW about strong women roles, here’s a helpful chart from the aptly named Overthinking It:
http://www.overthinkingit.com/2010/10/11/female-character-flowchart/
That is AWESOME.
That flow chart is GREAT! (And can I say how pleased I am that my own characters don’t fit in other than all the way across the top? Ooo. Ow. Hurt my shoulder patting myself on the back!)
Awesome flow chart! yikes…one of my characters fell into the “mystical artifact” or “fridge stuffing” …yinkies! XD
You guys might find this quiz fun, too: http://www.springhole.net/quizzes/marysue.htm
oh yes, I have that Mary Sue questionnaire downloaded. It works for guys too XD
@arlnee LOVE it, love it, love it!
@Colleen
Well, it’s very difficult to avoid slipping up and posting spoilers. I constantly have to remind myself that there are people who haven’t read the later books. I’m used to being the one years behind everyone else.
I have a friend in New York who picked up A Distant Soil for me. Then the releases became fewer and farther between… and then no more were released.